Patrick Lydon and David Maddox were invited to author a chapter 1+1 = 3: Stories of Imagination and the Art of Nature-based Solutions, for the book Nature-Based Solutions for Cities, published by Edward Elgar Publishers, and edited by Timon McPhearson, Nadja Kabisch, and Niki Frantzeskaki. For the chapter, they chose to involve three renowned artists from different countries (Robin Lasser, United States; Carla Vitantonio, Cuba; Baixo Ribeiro, Brazil) to help craft an international narrative on the power of art to bring forth real world solutions.
“Lydon and colleagues discuss how art and creative practices can inspire new ways of knowing and approaches to nature-based solutions. The authors present a three-step process, 1. Awareness, 2. Radical Imagination, and 3. Becoming Storytellers, which they argue can be central to enacting nature-based solutions (NBS) and improving human relationships with urban nature. They draw from a series of case studies that highlight participative practices that meld ecological and social perspectives in the United States, Brazil, Italy, Cuba, Korea, and Japan. The authors explore how these practices enable new paths to realizing NBS in cities by re-discovering relationships with urban nature and each other.”
excerpt from the book introduction
Excerpt: Art as a Way of Knowing
Like science, art is also its own way of knowing. In Ancient Greece, the arts were said to be rooted in the act of mimesis, a term that relates to the imitation of nature and to the experience of coming to know oneself as nature, and nature as oneself (Taussig 1993, McGinnis 1999). A human being engaged in the creation or experience of art is entering into a way of seeing that challenges our contemporary society’s common relationship to nature—one of domination and extraction. The view of art as a fundamental human capacity to connect with nature is one that has seen striking consistency across time and culture for thousands of years (Kelly 1998, Fuentes 2017), and mainstreaming human-nature connections must be central to an expanded use of NBS in societies.
Is such a concept of art completely unrelated to other disciplines? Hardly. Think of a world-renowned chef, or figure skater, or urban planner. These occupations may seem to be distinct from art—and from each other—yet, when they are done with excellence we commonly assign the word art to them. The art of cooking, the art of figure skating, the art of urban planning all sound like natural statements. Indeed, when we witness any of these jobs being performed as an art, we call the practitioner a natural at their job.
This is not mere wordplay: the words artist and natural are both rooted in the acknowledgment of human beings acting in accordance with nature (Haley 2011). At its most radically essential definition therefore, art might be best distinguished as the pure act of giving form to our relationship with nature (Lydon 2020). Biomimicry and biophilia are logical expressions of this relationship.
The artists and practitioners in this chapter share the view that the core value of art to the NBS movement is that art itself is an ecologically connected way of doing: both a way of knowing and mode of action. Though art may not always carry explicitly ecological messages, it is always a collaboration between human beings and the environment.
Throughout the chapter, we dance with the idea of art as a nature-based solution in theory and in practice with statements from individuals who are working within various contemporary cultures and mediums in the urban landscape. These statements are woven together with contextual writings, tying individual artistic practices to potential actions, municipal musings, and social movements for NBS in our cities.
We explore these ways of knowing, being, and doing in three stages, each connected to a mode or philosophy of engagement that helps connect ideas to artistic and transdisciplinary expression:
1) Awareness with artist and professor Robin Lasser from the United States.
2) Radical Imagination with curator Baixo Ribeiro from Brazil.
3) Becoming Storytellers with actress and author Carla Vitantonio from Italy.
Publishing Details
Nature-based Solutions for Cities
2023, Edward Elgar Publishing, UK
Editors: Timon McPhearson, Nadja Kabisch and Niki Frantzeskaki
Print ISBN: 9781800376755
eISBN: 9781800376762
DOI: https://doi.org/10.4337/9781800376762 Pages: 408
Chapter Authors: Patrick M. Lydon, David Maddox, Robin Lasser, Carla Vitantonio, Baixo Ribeiro
Read the Full Book (open access)
Read the Chapter
More from City as Nature In Print
Special Issue on Art and Nature-Based Solutions for Elsevier Press
1+1=3: The Art of Nature-Based Solutions for Edward Elgar Publishers
Art & Ecology Chapter in Routledge Handbook
